


Advent XVII

by Tammany



Series: Assorted Advent Stories, Christmas 2014, All-sorts, some connected. [18]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-12
Updated: 2014-12-12
Packaged: 2018-03-01 04:17:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2759351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This one is darker, unsettled, and...edgy. The world is too much with this one. The dream of Christmas always lies over an uneasy recognition of a broken heart lurking in every story, and only a hope for death to have no dominion and the gritty world to have no final word in the face of our hope.</p><p>There will be happiness again--but this one is about searching for happiness in the face of unhappiness, loss, heartache, and ordinary human imperfection.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Advent XVII

It came on the four women in a sudden wave, as they rustled quietly around the Great Hall waiting for word to come down that Mycroft, their grand master of ceremonies, was ready to greet Christmas.

The house was silent—or near to it.  The snow had blanketed the world, and Christmas had blanketed the snow. The entire world seemed to pause, holding its breath, waiting, as the women moved chairs and pushed sofas around the tree, forming a vast nest for the present-orgy to come. When they had done what seemed doable, they stood, shifting from foot to foot, arms crossed over their ribs.

Janine gave a sudden, sharp laugh. “It’s like waiting for the curtain to rise. But—on what?”

“It’s like waiting for the mission to start,” Anthea said, her own voice spectral and uneasy. “But—it’s not a mission. Is it?”

“It’s like taking your shot—and waiting to learn if the target lived or died,” Mary said. “But which is the right answer?”

Mummy said nothing. She walked to the window. “So still,” she said. “So damned still.”

“We should put on the music,” Anthea said. “It would be better with the music.”

“Not till Mycroft’s ready to come down,” Mary said. “He’s worked so hard on this. We can’t start without him.”

“What if he doesn’t come down?” Mummy asked, her voice querulous. “He’s moody, sometimes.”

“He’ll be here,” Anthea said, her voice stubborn and protective. “He’s the reliable one.” She glared reproachfully at Mummy. “He’s a good man.”

Mummy, detecting the unstated criticism, frowned. “Sometimes it would be easier if he wasn’t there,” she snapped, still staring out the window. “Sometimes he’s just the spectre at the feast.”

“Maybe if you bring down little Em?” Janine said, her voice artificially bright. “After all, Christmas is really for the little ones. No wonder it all seems…” Her voice trailed off uneasily. She glanced out the window like Mummy. The snow stretched out for miles, and from the Great Hall not a footstep could be seen. They might have been at the North Pole—the sense of isolation was that extreme.

“No,” Mary said, softly. “John and Sherlock and Father are playing with her and getting her some breakfast. Better to leave her there with them for now. Once she sees all this we won’t quiet her down for hours. We should let her start quietly.”

“Why?” Janine said, teasing, searching for laughter in the whispering emptiness. “Isn’t the whole point to wind them up and set them loose in Toy Land? Isn’t it all about the babies, in the end?”

“Yes,” Mummy said, still staring. “But sometimes it’s better not to wake them. Better to let them sleep.”

“Em’s not sleeping,” Mary said, the hair rising on her scalp.

Mummy looked up, sharply, turning from the window. She smiled—a brittle, broken smile too obviously false. “No,” she said. “Of course she’s not. No doubt she’s in heaven, with tangerine bits to gnaw on and scones to start her morning.” She sighed and grabbed a wrap from the back of one of the sofas, tossing it over her shoulders and pulling it close. Her fingers knotted in the fabric. “It’s just…so quiet,” she said, then. “I hate this house when it’s so quiet.”

Mary went white, remembering what John had told her. She swallowed. “When did the baby die, Mrs. Holmes?”

“Oh, just call me ‘Mummy.’  September,” she said, and looked out over the snow. “We moved out before Christmas. To the Dower House. I was already expecting Sherlock, then. I had felt so lucky…” Her voice shook with not crying. “Mycroft was a big boy, and so quiet. But I had a baby in the cot and another on the way, after so many failures.” She sighed, and said, “You’re right. Christmas—it’s all about the babies, isn’t it? The little ones.”

“I think it has to be about something more,” Mary said—but she knew she was the last one to say it. Her cot was filled. Her arms were not empty.

Anthea sighed, and said, “He wouldn’t say it—I doubt he’d even think it. But Mr. Holmes—this is how he lives it. Lives all of it. Like it’s for all the babies ever born, or ever going to be born. I think for him the cot is never really empty. Or ever completely filled.”

Mary looked at the other woman. “That is what draws us to service, isn’t it?” she said.

Anthea nodded, silent.

Mummy and Janine exchanged glances. They were not, themselves, of the sisterhood of the sword, but that of the shield…but they heard their swordsister’s message.

“I suppose there’s always a baby,” Mummy said, then smiled ruefully. “They’re always your babies. At least, I know Sherlock is.”

“Mycroft, too,” Mary said, firmly. “Don’t let the responsible ones be left out just because they are the responsible ones…”

Mummy rolled her eyes and sighed, but conceded the point, and they all shifted again.

From above came the cry that Christmas had arrived.

Mummy switched on the music.

Mary opened the doors.

Anthea lit the tree…

And Janine looked out at the still, white snow, and wondered if, on Christmas morning, the manger of the world was filled. Or not. She never knew what she believed. Well—it was hard, trapped between the Catholic Church and Islam and the modern world. But somewhere, somehow, she still believed that Christmas was about hope in a manger, and glory shining round about it.

In the end, it’s still about the full cot and the baby, she thought. No matter what you believe, or how you believe it, it’s about arms full of hope, and the world shouting Hallelujah.

 

 **Nota Bene:** Much as I love Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” I do think it’s rather overused. But I could think of no better song to try to address the broken, painful, hopeful, mystic courage of love and holidays. So the “carol” of this Advent story is his “Hallelujah,” by whatever artist you best like, and you may want to follow it with a chaser of Joni Mitchell’s haunting “River.” Both evoke the shattered, hungry world longing for love and hope—and that need, that screaming baby in the heart of everyone living, is at the heart of any theology of Christmas, secular or otherwise.


End file.
